


An Economy of Truth

by Destina



Category: Smallville
Genre: Drama, First Time, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2002-10-14
Updated: 2002-10-14
Packaged: 2017-11-01 04:52:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,542
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/352128
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Destina/pseuds/Destina
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lex and Clark practice the art of willful blindness.</p>
            </blockquote>





	An Economy of Truth

Only the hand that erases can write the true thing. - Meister Eckhart 

I. 

"Ionic bonds," Clark said, out of the blue. 

Lex had been trying not to look at him, because Clark sprawled across the rug in front of the fire was a veritable feast of desire. Amazing how a simple thing like firelight on dark hair could stir the waters of friendship and turn them black with lust. "Come again?" 

"Ionic, covalent. Giving up something to another versus sharing." Clark looked at Lex over the pages of the open science book. "Doesn't it ever seem to you that everything in science has its parallel in human nature?" 

"Truthfully? No." Lex smiled at the thought of one too many stuffy science teachers. "As insightful as that may be, I never thought about taking the humanistic approach to the sciences." 

"Seriously, Lex - how could you get multiple degrees in this stuff and not think about it?" 

"Science is a practical matter, Clark. Simple, direct. Interacting with people is its own kind of science, and not at all direct." 

"Hmph," Clark said, and sat up. The neck of his shirt fell open, revealing a small patch of skin at the base of his throat, just enough to add fuel to Lex's sudden fantasy of human interaction. "Aren't you done with that yet?" he asked, nodding at the laptop beneath Lex's fingers. 

"Just about. I need to look over some shareholder reports, and then..." Lex glanced at his watch. "Shouldn't you be home by now? Last time you turned up past midnight, the pumpkin squad came for you - hey, and your mother has a chainsaw. A big one. I've seen it." 

"Lex," Clark said, laughing. "They don't care. Really. I told them I was at Chloe's." 

That wound Lex up tight, and he leaned forward, across the desk. "Why'd you do that, Clark?" 

Clark shrugged. He flipped the schoolbook closed with an idle finger, putting an end to homework and all things high school. "Easier, I guess. Not so many questions to answer." 

"I'm not sure I like the idea of you lying to your parents about being here." _With me_. 

"Too late now." Clark smiled, a thousand watts of deceptive charm. "I'm sure it's not like you never lied to your dad when you were my age." 

"That's true," Lex said, thoughtful. "But of course, that was different, since I could come and go as I pleased. My lies were..." 

"Bigger?" Clark suggested. 

"Different." 

They looked at each other for a long moment. Clark's face was still, and curious. 

"Doesn't it bother you?" Lex said finally. 

"What?" 

"Lying about something so unimportant." 

"If that's the worst I ever do, I'll be doing fine, as my dad would say." 

"Your dad would say a lot of things, and number one would be: never go near that Lex Luthor again." 

"He tried that." Clark looked impatient. He leaned back against the chair, arms flung out and hung over the edges of the seat. "It didn't work." 

"I see." 

Clark shifted his body, restless, and Lex watched with a dry mouth. Not the kind of seduction scene Lex was accustomed to - high school student comes on to multimillionaire, with all the baggage attached. Clark had no idea what he was doing. Or maybe he did. 

Lex was strangely excited by it. 

"Well. I wish I didn't have to cut this short, but there are a number of reports for me to read. Otherwise, my father's lack of faith in me will be validated, and I'd hate for that to happen." 

"Oh." Clark blushed, fished for the book and was up off the floor in a flash. "Right. Then I'll go." 

"Clark. How about a late dinner?" 

"I could eat. But it's really late." 

"One of the perks of being rich," Lex said. "Sometimes, it's almost worth it. You can bring your science homework back tomorrow. We'll go over it in detail then. But in the meantime, I'm hungry." 

He was rewarded with a huge, brief grin. "That'd be great. Dinner, and the homework thing." 

"Clark?" Something made Lex say it. "Don't lie to your parents about it. Hanging out here. It's no big deal." 

"Not to you," Clark said, flashing that grin. 

Lex looked at Clark, at his earnest face, and a quiet emptiness grew within him. 

II. 

Lex watched the contortions of Clark's face with amusement: something like horror, and then a flush that traveled from Clark's collar to his cheekbones, followed by a working of his lips. "What...what is that?" Clark managed, finally, as he dropped his spoon into the soup. 

"I should have gone for the cheeseburgers." Lex took a sip of his wine. "It's turtle soup. Flavored with truffle oil. Was going to be tomorrow's dinner party special." 

"It's _weird_." 

Lex chuckled, and then he laughed, something he could rarely remember doing. Certainly not before he'd met Clark. Ironic smiles and cold pleasantries had been the order of the day back then. He'd learned at an early age that laughter was weakness, a disguise for discomfort. "Yes, it is. Do you want to suffer through, or should I-" 

"No, as long as..." Clark hesitated. "Steak next, right?" 

"Right." Lex smiled into the wine glass. "Coming right up." 

The meat was rare, because Kansas was the heartland, where meat came to the plate half-alive and pulsing with blood. 

"This is great," Clark said, after a sip of water. "If my mom were cooking, I'd have to wash the dishes." 

"I can arrange for them to leave the dishes for you, if you'd feel more at home." 

"No thanks." Clark grinned. "I feel just fine. Right at home, actually." 

Lex studied Clark over the rim of his glass. Clark had shed his usual layers of flannel and was stripped down to a single t-shirt and jeans, which clung to him indecently. Or decently, depending on the point of view, but all Lex could think about was muscle and sinew and bare skin beneath the thin cloth, and his cock spoke to him approvingly, making all sorts of unreasonable demands that could be concealed by a folded napkin. 

"So." Lex looked at Clark, and Clark looked back. This was new, this strange directness of gaze, the unwillingness to look away. Clark was becoming bold. "You thinking about what colleges you'd like to attend? I'd imagine with your grades, you can get into the university of your choice." 

"Not exactly." Clark went from radiant to brooding in a moment, like clouds across the sun. "Money. You know. Scholarships are only a part. But I can work, and..." 

"Clark," Lex said, and the rest of it went unsaid, because it wasn't needed. Words would only have cluttered the sentiment. 

"Can't," Clark said. "Have to do this on my own." 

"Fair enough," Lex said, determined to undo that, somehow. 

The how came to him, moments later, when Clark absently rubbed a hand over his belly, and it sparked a need in Lex that made his throat dry. Not a way of doing business, not a way of helping his friend, but a choice for life, a desire so strong he was drained away into nothingness because of it. 

They plowed through the steaks and vegetables in silence, looking at each other across candles and blood and greenery grown with sweat on Clark's family's farm. Lex could feel the decision creeping up on him, stealing away his rational thought, his ability to remain detached. When had he ever thought he could manage that with Clark, anyway? 

"I should go," Clark said, over cognac in the den. More forbidden pleasures, far from strict fathers and tired rules. 

Lex nodded his agreement. "It's pretty late." He slouched low on the sofa, his gaze flickering neutral between the fire and the clock on the mantle. So easy to touch, to taste, to take; all he had to do was reach over and Clark would be his. 

Still, he couldn't do it. Clark's disappointment radiated from him in waves, long silent pleas for attention and touch. 

"G'night, Clark," he said, as he collected the snifter from Clark's fingers. 

Clark's eyes drew Lex, repelled him, sent him running from the room with a calm swagger. 

**III.**

"Another piece about you in the Inquisitor?" Clark said. He leaned over Lex's shoulder, reading the article from the screen. Saturday at the mansion, together; lunch and science and planets spinning out of orbit, about to collide. 

"The only paper worth reading in this miserable county is the Daily Planet," Lex grumbled. His fingers tangled with Clark's as they reached for the touch pad. 

"So you keep saying. Lex...you don't have to keep avoiding it. I know." 

"Know what?" Lex turned his head but kept Clark's face in his line of sight, with his dropped eyes and lowered lashes. 

"You're not responsible for the things they've blamed on you." 

"I'm not what you think I am," he told Clark, thinking of pieces of spaceships, of insane scientists and father-killing flowers, of reporters paid off and contracts on lives he had barely touched. 

"I don't care," Clark said. 

"Seriously, Clark-" 

"I don't _care_ ," Clark said, and the bottom of the world opened up, and Lex fell through, anchored by Clark's trust, shattered by his friendship. 

"Clark." Lex levered back from the chair and wrenched himself out of it. "You should." 

"What - care?" Clark looked at Lex with eyes that knew more than the average farmboy might. "We've been over this. You think I don't know what you're about after all these years?" 

"All these years," Lex echoed, with a faint smile. "Two years is barely enough time to learn the basics." 

"I know enough." Clark straightened. "I'm learning more every day." 

How to refute that without saying too much, Lex didn't know. It hovered around him like a challenge, this impossible desire to tell Clark everything and see just how ready he was not to care. But he didn't do it; he wouldn't. Not now. 

Clark reached down and clicked through a few screens, to something he probably thought Lex knew nothing about. Chloe's picture beamed out at them. "Did you know Chloe won a scholarship from the Planet? She can't stop talking about it." 

Lex looked at the screen and asked, "Didn't you apply for that scholarship?" 

"Why?" Clark suspicious was like storm clouds in July, humid and threatening. 

Lex had seen storms before. "Just curious." 

"Yeah, I did." 

"And?" 

Clark squirmed, not as defiant as he'd like to be. Lex could see the truth wriggling out of Clark's skin, bursting forth almost without his approval. "She won." 

"Second place, I heard." 

Clark shrugged. "She heard first." 

"And that's because...?" 

"I turned it down. I told her I didn't apply." 

"Really," Lex said, more an observation than a question. He looked at Clark, let his gaze burn through layers of untruth and generosity. "Don't you think she might find out, eventually?" 

"I don't know. I didn't get that far." 

Lex smiled. "You're a bad liar, Clark." 

Clark's body stiffened next to his, and Lex wondered if it was because of the insult, or the implication. "I don't...I mean, I try never to...but it's not always the right thing." 

"What - not lying?" 

"It's better for her if she doesn't know. Her pride, Lex." 

"Yes, pride. All-important in females of the species. You're a quick study, Clark Kent." 

"Not really." Clark seemed all in motion then, from his shifting eyes to his shuffling feet, and Lex thought, yes. A quick study. Maybe too quick. 

"What do you think about a swim?" he asked, to break this strange tension that had dropped between them, unspoken, unwanted. 

Clark had a beautiful smile, even more so when it was the grateful kind. "That'd be great." He tagged Lex with a slap to the shoulder, and was gone, on his way, away from Lex, or maybe toward him. Hard to say. 

The pond was the perfect place to while away the warm afternoon hours of the early spring days. Lex had invited Clark there, told him he was welcome anytime. Clark had taken to daily swims across its expanse, long strokes and kicking through clear water, waiting. Waiting for Lex to show up, to throw off his clothes and dive in, to match Clark stroke for stroke. 

Once every ten seconds or so, Lex thought about it. Sometimes he thought about it when he was alone in bed, in the deepest part of night, and he thought about the parts of his heart that were untouched, and it was enough to make him come. Clark's name, on his lips; Clark's body, in his mind's eye - right where it belonged, out of the realm of reality, away from temptation. 

Finally he gave in this day, this perfect day, and stretched out in the sun beside Clark, to watch the water drip from him, to watch Clark defy time and sadness in his radiant perfection. The sun beat down on them, creating the start of the humid Midwestern summer. Lex sought fragments of remembered childhood. 

Clark sat up, propped on one elbow, and watched him. Lex made himself blank, as silent as possible, a nothing on which everything could be created. Clark's lips were moist and red; his eyes were serious, filled with compassion, and Lex wanted that compassion, wanted to be seen through the lens of its kindness. 

He sat up, pretense forgotten, and cupped Clark's neck in his hand. This boy, who was so much a man, whose eyes narrowed with anticipation - this man, whose desire bled into his own, whose lips were pliable and warm under his, who opened to him with bare touches and sparse words - Clark, who was his, who had been his since the moment he'd brought Lex back from the dead. 

Their first kiss was a tangled mess of conflicting needs. Clark kissed eagerly, not shy, not too practiced, but with the passion of waiting. Lex was undone, immediately, quietly, by the stroking tongue, the shivering sensation of rightness that came with the parting of Clark's lips beneath his own. Clark opened to him, became his, something to be treasured and held and... 

"Clark," he gasped. "Where...what did you tell your parents? About today?" 

"The lake," Clark whispered against his skin, breath and voice sending Lex into shudders of erotic joy. "With Pete. They don't know I'm here." 

"Another lie," Lex said, disappointed. 

"You do it," Clark whispered, and kissed him, stroked his tongue against Lex's. "It's no different for me." 

"Clark...Clark." Lex pushed him away. Christ, but it was hard not to want when he could have _anything_ he wanted. 

"What?" Clark said, and arranged his body on the blanket, limbs spread across the blue of the fabric, eyes shimmering. Lex just looked at him, until Clark flushed a deep pink. "They wouldn't understand." Clark reached for him. "Please." 

Lex wanted to. Except, he couldn't. Not like this. 

"Clark," he said, and detached himself with effort. "You have to go." 

"Lex?" Wounded. 

"Clark, please. Just go." 

He couldn't bear to see Clark's face, or hear his disappointed sigh. Clark was so young, so sure of what he needed. 

So dishonest. 

"Why do you think it's different for me?" Clark said, and anger flashed beneath the words. "You've told your share of lies. I'm sure you don't think I'm stupid. I _know_." 

"Of course you know." Lex was angry, too, but his reasons were less clear. "Because I've told you. There's not much I haven't told you, Clark." 

"Not much." 

"And you?" Lex rolled on his back and looked at the beautiful boy, man, object of desire, of need, of every fantasy, and couldn't bear it. He closed his eyes. "What about you, Clark? Is it getting easier?" 

Clark was quiet next to him, silent in that strange space a man can inhabit when he wrestles with demons. When he spoke, it was with echoes of that same silence, a soft counterpoint to Lex's heart. "No." 

On the black screen of his closed eyes, Lex saw Clark's face, the sadness reflected in his voice, and thought about all the truths that were between them, stripped raw and naked, ready to be illustrated in painful detail, and he couldn't bear it. He reached out with one hand, found Clark's shoulder, his neck. His fingers locked around muscle and bone, skin and something real, something true enough, and he opened his eyes. 

Clark's eyes were sad, and Lex hadn't meant to create that feeling in Clark. Not when it was so close to pain, and pain should never touch Clark. He rose up and captured Clark's mouth with his own, took it with the kind of feverish need he'd barely dared to acknowledge, but Clark was there with him, and it was good. Perfect, when Clark's tongue entered his mouth and their bodies connected, hard and strong together, young and beautiful in just that moment, as though nothing had been before, and nothing would come after. 

"Finally," Clark murmured, against Lex's bare skin. Just a breath of contentment, a wish fulfilled. 

Lex had nothing to say. He only drew Clark in, let him suckle and touch and take to his heart's content. 

Sometimes, between stolen breaths, Lex stopped to wonder if he was doing the right thing. But then Clark looked up, eyes so hot and earnest, and doubt fizzled away in a shower of sparks. Later - when Clark was sated, and the world was bare - doubt could be drowned in warm scotch. He would welcome the guilt, too, and he would spread it out across an empty mansion, to fill the void between walls and windows. 

Lex's heart twisted; he put the pain aside, to nurse and savor later. Later, when this was done. 

Later, when he could breathe again. 

Lex took charge, when it was time. Hard hands, up and down Clark's body, and a tongue to trace his spine, to find the center of him, licking, pushing Clark into a frenzy. It was good; it burned, in the deepest part of Lex, where he was still untouched, where no one would ever find him, find this. He would lock it away, bury it deep so it could not be found, uncovered, used against him someday. Youthful indiscretion, on Clark's part. A choice of a different sort, for Lex. 

He sucked Clark deep into his throat, heard him shout and felt himself knocked sideways, planted firm on the mattress. Clark had the raw talent of eager youth. His tongue pulled, stroked, made Lex harder, drew him to the point of pain, where he had to push in or die. Using, taking, needing, wanting, and then it was all the same, just a mass of impulse and electric joy, in those moments where Clark's wide eyes found his. He knew the rapture of saying Clark's name, hearing it in the moment that surrounded them. Clark's hands pawed at him, seeking more, while Lex was inside him, buried deep. Surrender. 

The moment passed, and gave way to silence, and drowsing in gentle sunlight. 

Lex did not sleep. He watched the sparkle of the sunlight on the water and thought of the long days ahead. 

IV. 

Lex took Clark with him when he had the Porsche destroyed. 

Clark stood next to him, watching, submerged into the chaotic sea of sound - metal crunching, glass breaking, soldered joints popping. Sounds that brought sensations, memories: a stunning moment of fear; the dark relief of release; an unexpected gift, delivered out of the wreckage of his entire life. 

"So why now?" Clark asked, at his shoulder. "I thought that car was sacred to you." 

"It's a symbol of rebirth for me, Clark. A new life out of the ashes of the old. But it's also a chain to the past. I needed to put that past to rest." 

Clark nodded, though Lex was sure he didn't fully understand. It didn't matter. Lex looked at the car and saw ripples on the surface of a pond, spreading out in all directions, obscuring what was beneath. 

"You given any more thought to which college it will be?" Deceptively casual, Lex thought. Just as planned. He jammed his hands into his pockets. Clark wasn't fooled, though. He could feel Clark weighing his answer, want balanced against pride, need against cost. 

"One I can afford," Clark said. A smile crept into his voice. 

"Right," Lex agreed amiably, when Clark looped an arm around his chest and hugged him. It would take time, but everything would fall into place. Stubborn farmboys with their stubborn fathers...he'd work his way around it. Like Clark had worked his way around Lex. Variations on a theme. 

They walked back to the car in silence as twilight deepened around them. Clark's eyes were dark when he looked at Lex. The specter of questions asked and never answered rose between them. Lex could almost see the shadow over Clark, the one he'd cast and encouraged. Clark would always shelter the truth; he would hold it close to the vest, away from Lex's needy persistence. 

It was something Lex could live with. There were other truths, and they were more important. 

End  



End file.
